The present invention relates to a cutting device for fruit and vegetables, preferably onions, comprising a cutting member having intersecting or parallel knife blades forming a grid, and a counter pad against which the cutting member can be pushed thereby effecting a cutting up of the onion at issue.
The usual method today for cutting onions is to use a knife and at the same time hold the onion with the fingers of the one hand and successively moving it along the onion which is thereby cut up to slices. The fingertips are then used to hold and to displace the onion. Especially a person not experienced to this procedure can easily get his fingers cut. In the market there are also available a number of different mechanical devices for onion cutting but it has turned out that their production costs are high and that the handling and cleaning of them is difficult.
The object of the present invention is to provide a cutting device, particularly for onions, of a new type which does eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks simultaneously facilitating the cutting approaches and making it convenient to perform. The features characterizing the invention are set out in the patent claims.
Thanks to the invention there has now been provided a cutting device for fruit and vegetables which is especially suitable for onion cutting and which in a very safe and simple way performs the cutting process. It has turned out that this cutting device does in an excellent manner satisfy its purposes and also that it can simply be manufactured at a low cost. Thanks to its simplicity the cutting device can also conveniently be dished and kept clean because it does consist of two parts only which are pivotably connected with each other by means of a hinge. The part of the device which is adapted to support the onion is constituted by a cutting-board which can be placed i.e. on a table. In this device the cutting member is pivotably mounted on the cutting-board so that when used it can perform a swinging movement down towards the cutting-board and to an onion placed thereon so that the latter can be sliced. To obtain a high quality cutting process the cutting-board exhibits a plurality of projections which are to support the onion properly and which penetrate the openings in the grid which the knife blades form. This occurs during the final phase of the cutting process, when the knife blades move pass the lower portion of the onion and penetrate into the grooves running between the projection whereby a complete cutting of the onion is achieved.